Investigating Science with Young Children


Book Description

This book outlines 85 lively activities the teacher can use in guiding three-, four-, and five-year-olds in a fruitful exploration of science. The first part of the book presents a theoretical explanation of the process approach advocated by the author; the second, the activities themselves: Exploring Water, Mixing Colors, Caring for Classroom Pets, Setting Objects in Motion, Discovering Seeds, Using Our Bodies in Space, and Working with Wood, to name a few.




Building Structures with Young Children--Trainer's Guide


Book Description

A companion to the curriculum, this trainer’s guide serves as an indispensable handbook for trainers and administrators interested in introducing staff to the Building Structures with Young Children curriculum—from planning to implementation. Special sections outline the curriculum and introduce scientific reasoning to adults, and eight workshops detail the complete curriculum for staff members. The guide also includes strategies for supporting teachers over time through mentoring and guided discussions.




Investigating Science With Young Children


Book Description

Teaching science to young children has long been an area of intense interest and concern to educators. Investigating Science with Young Children is specifically designed to address this concern in a practical, timely, and enjoyable way. Originally planned as an extension of the ten-booklet series, Science Experiences for Young Children (Teachers College Press, 1975), this book outlines 85 lively activities the teacher can use in guiding three-, four-, and five-year-olds in a fruitful exploration of science. The first part of the book presents a theoretical explanation of the process approach advocated by the author; the second, the activities themselves: Exploring Water, Mixing Colors, Setting Objects in Motion, to name a few. Investigating Science with Young Children offers an informed guide to resources necessary to implement an effective and productive science program. The book will help teachers fully understand the process approach and encourage them to develop their own science activities for the classroom. As the author states, “It is not enough to read about process science; you must use it to find out how much children enjoy and learn from this method.” This book will serve as a supplemental text for early childhood and primary science curriculum courses and as an invaluable resource for teachers. “There is much of value here.” —School Science & Mathematics “Teaching science by a process approach is an exciting adventure for both teachers and children. There is neither a predetermined sequence of events for children nor a specific set of directions for the teacher. Process science is an open-ended approach, and the direction learning will take is determined, for the most part, by the children.” —From the Preface




Taking Science to School


Book Description

What is science for a child? How do children learn about science and how to do science? Drawing on a vast array of work from neuroscience to classroom observation, Taking Science to School provides a comprehensive picture of what we know about teaching and learning science from kindergarten through eighth grade. By looking at a broad range of questions, this book provides a basic foundation for guiding science teaching and supporting students in their learning. Taking Science to School answers such questions as: When do children begin to learn about science? Are there critical stages in a child's development of such scientific concepts as mass or animate objects? What role does nonschool learning play in children's knowledge of science? How can science education capitalize on children's natural curiosity? What are the best tasks for books, lectures, and hands-on learning? How can teachers be taught to teach science? The book also provides a detailed examination of how we know what we know about children's learning of scienceâ€"about the role of research and evidence. This book will be an essential resource for everyone involved in K-8 science educationâ€"teachers, principals, boards of education, teacher education providers and accreditors, education researchers, federal education agencies, and state and federal policy makers. It will also be a useful guide for parents and others interested in how children learn.




Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards


Book Description

Humans, especially children, are naturally curious. Yet, people often balk at the thought of learning scienceâ€"the "eyes glazed over" syndrome. Teachers may find teaching science a major challenge in an era when science ranges from the hardly imaginable quark to the distant, blazing quasar. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards is the book that educators have been waiting forâ€"a practical guide to teaching inquiry and teaching through inquiry, as recommended by the National Science Education Standards. This will be an important resource for educators who must help school boards, parents, and teachers understand "why we can't teach the way we used to." "Inquiry" refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and in which students grasp science knowledge and the methods by which that knowledge is produced. This book explains and illustrates how inquiry helps students learn science content, master how to do science, and understand the nature of science. This book explores the dimensions of teaching and learning science as inquiry for K-12 students across a range of science topics. Detailed examples help clarify when teachers should use the inquiry-based approach and how much structure, guidance, and coaching they should provide. The book dispels myths that may have discouraged educators from the inquiry-based approach and illuminates the subtle interplay between concepts, processes, and science as it is experienced in the classroom. Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards shows how to bring the standards to life, with features such as classroom vignettes exploring different kinds of inquiries for elementary, middle, and high school and Frequently Asked Questions for teachers, responding to common concerns such as obtaining teaching supplies. Turning to assessment, the committee discusses why assessment is important, looks at existing schemes and formats, and addresses how to involve students in assessing their own learning achievements. In addition, this book discusses administrative assistance, communication with parents, appropriate teacher evaluation, and other avenues to promoting and supporting this new teaching paradigm.




200 Science Investigations for Young Students


Book Description

This book enables teachers to develop a complete range of basic investigations for science with students aged five to 11 years. It demonstrates how children can use hands-on activities to consolidate and extend their knowledge and understanding. Investigations are presented in a generic form, so that teachers can work through them and adapt them to meet the particular needs of their own classes. The presentation of activities ranges from highly-structured sequences of instructions and questions (with answers!), to more general discussions, depending on the approach needed and the likely variations in equipment and materials available. Each activity is aimed to help any teacher carry out significant scientific investigations with their class, and where necessary, to learn alongside them. - Almost every investigation and activity has been tested by the author. - Investigations use readily-available, non-specialist or recycled materials. The context of this book is children′s need to learn through first-hand experience of the world around them. This book is an essential resource for teachers planning an effective science programme, or for student teachers needing to broaden their scientific knowledge and understanding. 200 Science Investigations for Young Students is the companion volume of activities which demonstrate the theories in Martin Wenham′s Understanding Primary Science. The content has been guided by, but not limited to, The National Curriculum 2000 and the Initial Teacher Training Curriculum for Primary Science, issued by the Teacher Training Agency.




Boxitects


Book Description

"Meg goes to Maker School to hone her talent for building with boxes, but when Simone, another boxitect, arrives they become so competitive they nearly fail in the annual Maker Match." --







How Students Learn


Book Description

How do you get a fourth-grader excited about history? How do you even begin to persuade high school students that mathematical functions are relevant to their everyday lives? In this volume, practical questions that confront every classroom teacher are addressed using the latest exciting research on cognition, teaching, and learning. How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom builds on the discoveries detailed in the bestselling How People Learn. Now, these findings are presented in a way that teachers can use immediately, to revitalize their work in the classroom for even greater effectiveness. Organized for utility, the book explores how the principles of learning can be applied in teaching history, science, and math topics at three levels: elementary, middle, and high school. Leading educators explain in detail how they developed successful curricula and teaching approaches, presenting strategies that serve as models for curriculum development and classroom instruction. Their recounting of personal teaching experiences lends strength and warmth to this volume. The book explores the importance of balancing students' knowledge of historical fact against their understanding of concepts, such as change and cause, and their skills in assessing historical accounts. It discusses how to build straightforward science experiments into true understanding of scientific principles. And it shows how to overcome the difficulties in teaching math to generate real insight and reasoning in math students. It also features illustrated suggestions for classroom activities. How Students Learn offers a highly useful blend of principle and practice. It will be important not only to teachers, administrators, curriculum designers, and teacher educators, but also to parents and the larger community concerned about children's education.




From Neurons to Neighborhoods


Book Description

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.